Thursday, April 29, 2010

I don't remember where I first heard about him, but I know it had to do with a movie poster. Along with his personal projects and band posters, he does these epic movie posters for the Alamo Drafthouse, which also has a cult following all its own. He makes severely limited runs, doesn't reprint, and they sell out fast. You have to be fast/lucky to get one. I recommend you don't even try, mainly because I don't want any more competition.

I was able to get a two part poster set he created for a screening of The Warriors, and awesome dystopian look at New York City. It was released in 1979, and it is great.

It took a little while for inspiration to strike, but I eventually came up with what I think is a pretty good frame concept. It isn't the most unique idea, but I think it fits the poster and the movie pretty well.

I was leaving a client's office about a month ago, and in the alley behind her office someone had thrown out a couple old exterior windows. I am a sucker for these, and I have several already in my garage. These looked to be just about the right size to convert into a frame for the poster. All it required was a little trimming, and a quick cut to the glass to get it down to size, and I really think they turned out perfect.

Teener's mom is a big-time gardener. Every spring she arrives with flats of vegetables and flowers for us. For her birthday this year Big Ed bought her a greenhouse kit. So it was all set, as soon as the weather got nice we would head to Cleveland and help them build it.

The dimensions of the house are 8'x6', and we decided to place it on pavers. So, Teener's mom made countless trips to Lowes to buy pavers in batches of 25, and she excavated the ground where the base would be built.

The week before our trip the weather was a nice low 70s, and mostly sunny. So why wouldn't it rain and hail on us during the weekend. Anyway, we endeavored to persevere.

Ed, Sue and Teener layed the foundation, and I assembled the kit. Hopefully, we could all get it done in one day.

Here is the patch that Sue dug out. Not too shabby for a 60 year old woman. Hell, I'd be proud if I dug it.

Diligently laying out all the pieces:

Here we are moving an old beam to serve as the back edge of the foundation.

Here is Sue realizing we are going to need a lot more limestone:

Here I am cyphering the mostly correct instructions:

More sand going into the PSUMobile:

Here is Ed, gently tapping some pavers into position:

The frame of the greenhouse is complete and ready to be moved onto the pavers:

Serendipitously, the frame was ready for the base at the same time the base was ready for the frame. At this stage the greenhouse weighs about 100lbs, and was easily moved. Here is Ed drilling holes for the anchors:

Sue, and her trusty wagon:

Here's Ed, giddy from getting to use his drill bits:

Installing the windows:

Ed, surveying the progress thus far:

Sue installing the shelves:

Ed and Sue in their completed greenhouse:

We were all thrilled to be done in one day at a reasonable hour, and Ed and Sue took us out for a great Italian dinner.

*This project took place last fall, but part of it will become relevant in later posts.

The room where we spend about 80% of our time started off as a bedroom that was expanded on. It has a vaulted ceiling, an almost all glass wall that provides a great view of our back yard and it lofts up into our bedroom. This was all done by the previous owner, and it was a major selling point for the house.

The downside is that it had white carpeting. And we have two black dogs. And even though the rest of the house has easy to maintain hardwood floors, this is the room that they run to when they have to throw up (or perform even less attractive bodily functions). Long story short, the carpet just wasn't working out.

After discussing some options, Teener and I decided on a slate tile floor. This seemed simple enough.

Teener found a supplier from Jersey that had exactly the tile we wanted, and at a good price. My mom recommended we put in a heated floor, which seemed like a good idea. So pretty soon, supplies started to arrive.

We ripped the carpet up, and it was pretty obvious where the old room ended and the addition started. There was the original hardwood for about half the floor, and particle board for the rest. We decided that we didn't want to put the tile in the particle board, so that had to come up. And it didn't come up easy:

The previous owner (and I don't want it to seem like I am shitting on him, he does good work) went a little crazy with the nail gun, and it sucked pulling this out. I ended up running a circular saw over it to make smaller sections and then tearing it up with a fubar. I can't recommend this tool enough for demolition:

After getting it up we realized we were going to have to lower the joists to get the floors to line up. This was made more interesting by the fact that it sat on a slab that I am guessing was once a patio. And it was graded away from the house. So we had to rip the joists on the table saw to get them just right. This proved to be more art than science.

Oh yeah, we also didn't get started on this project till early December. A great time to tear out part of your house in Michigan. The fire in the background is where I was burning various scraps and debris.

The new joists are in, as well as insulation. There wasn't really any insulation under the old floor, and it was drafty as hell. The room used to be real cold in the winter. We would often have ice crystals on the back windows and doors. We hoped the new heated floor and insulation would change that.

I don't know about you, but one of the things I love most about a big project is the excuse it provides to buy more tools. And since this was so close to christmas, shit was on sale. Nice. Behold my new drill/driver combo. Since everything in this post happened a few months ago, I can report that the Bosch combo is a quality set. I am very happy with them.

The impact driver was awesome. It fits perfectly in between joists, and the impact action really cuts back on the amount of downward force you need to apply. It's a noisy bugger though. Also, both have an LED to illuminate what you are working on, or as my buddy Rob put it: "So you can see what you are doing for once."

Once we got the sub-floor put down on the new section and tore up the hardwood from the old floor, we realized we should probably tear up the old sub-floor as well. It might have been okay to use, but once you have this much time and money invested, why start cutting corners.

Tearing the floor up did make it easier to run the power to the new floor. We also used the opportunity to run some network cables and repair some duct work. Notice the nice tear in the drywall from where the molding came off? I was thrilled with myself for doing that.

Brand spankin' new sub-floor! Notice the cheep kneepads on Teener. About $3 at Lowes. Totally worth it. My only regret is that we went a couple days without them.

Next came the backer board. This step went incredibly smoothly. As did laying the electric matting.

We were hoping for the new tile floor to be within a quarter inch in height to the adjacent hardwood. Miraculously, it was perfectly level. Laying the floor took longer than we thought (just like every other step in this project), but it went smoothly.

Here is the the sealer being applied.

Now, a few words about grout. That shit is expensive. It cost about $200 to grout the floor. I don't know what goes into making grout, I am guessing ground unicorn horn. The grout was also the one step that didn't go too well for us as a couple. We managed to play nicely together through all the other setbacks. And this project took a lot longer, and cost a lot more than we even began to suspect at the beginning. So I was pretty proud of us...until the grouting. That was where we snapped. Which, upon looking back was pretty hilarious. Teener actually threw a sponge at me. That was a first.

Anyway, we bitterly grouted in silence for a few hours, which explains why there are no pictures of this step.

Here is a close up of some of the tiles. We are really happy with the tiles we chose. The are all pretty uniform in color, and each has nice, unique character.

And now with the furniture back in:

It's been a couple months now, and I couldn't be happier with the floor. It was a long road to get here, but it looks great. The heated floor is awesome. This room was so warm and pleasant this last winter, and the animals loved it.